Mickadeit: Poor women start business out of church basement

Women stitch and sell calaveras, or Day of the Dead skulls, as part of the Morning Garden anti-poverty program held in the basement at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in downtown Santa Ana. From left, Minerva Molina, Delfina Garcia and Susana Montalva.FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The entrepreneurial women in the anti-poverty program run out of the basement of a downtown Santa Ana church are back at it. They've raised the bar on creativity and raised their price modestly. If everybody else is making a buck off the Day of the Dead now, why not them, too?

A few days before Christmas last year, I wrote of Latina mothers from low-income households making hand-stitched ornaments – stuffed finch and cardinal figurines called Birds of Hope – and selling them through boutiques in Newport Beach.

The women are part of the Morning Garden program, which is part of the larger Hands Together program hosted by the venerable Episcopal Church of the Messiah on Bush Street. The women used to just hang around and socialize while their children went to the preschool next door. The people who ran the program decided to teach the moms English, nutrition and computer skills. Then, in a burst of inspiration, the program leaders, Mayra Serna and Mary Anderson, decided to put the moms in business for themselves.

The model is based on the Homeboy Industries line of businesses started by an L.A. priest, the Rev. Gregory Boyle, who turned gang members into productive citizens. Serna and Anderson watched a video about Homeboy and took it from there. Their advantage: They weren't dealing with gang members.

After I wrote about the Christmas ornaments, orders exceeded production capacity. Now, the Morning Gardeners have a new product line, a hand-stitched and embroidered skull figurine, or calaveras.

When I arrived Wednesday morning, 13 women were intently cutting, stitching and inspecting the calaverases, rushing to finish as many as possible before the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated in conjunction with All Saints and All Souls days, Nov. 1 and Nov. 2.

"We're in scramble mode again!" Anderson said.

Unlike the Christmas ornaments, the calaverases show a great deal of improvised embroidery. True, some of the misshapen earlier efforts ("Charlie Brown calaverases," Anderson calls them) looked more like Easter eggs. But as the weeks have passed, the skill level and creativity have ramped up. The figures have details like buttons for eyes, flowering vines for hair, even mustaches.

Earlier this month, they took about 25 to the Bowers Museum as part of a one-day sale. They figured out which ones people seemed to like and started making more of those. Still, I looked at about 25 examples in various stages of production and found no two alike. (www.ocregister.com/columns/frank/ for examples.) With the added labor and craftsmanship, the calaverases are going for $10 wholesale, double what the Christmas birds fetched.

Ninety percent goes to the women and 10 percent into buying more materials. They'll probably make about 100 calaverases, so this enterprise alone is not going to make them self-sufficient. But it's something, and for some, it's the first money they've ever made on their own. One worker, as I wrote last year, cried when the money from the sale of the birds was distributed.

One of the moms, Karla Diaz told me Wednesday that she made $60 to $80 last year on the birds, which went for shoes, clothes and hygiene products for her four kids. "Not much left for me!" she laughed. But she believes the English and computer skills she's picking up in the program on the days the women aren't in production are putting her in a better position to enter the job market.

Diaz is kind of the quality-control arm of the operation. She'll detect little flaws in the stitching and fix them or give advice, although she's mindful that a certain amount of human error is desirable when you are selling a product as handmade. I can easily see her as an inspector of some kind.

"Our whole goal is to break the cycle of poverty," Anderson says.

I can see that. It's a beautiful thing to witness, even if it is maddeningly slow work.

The calaveras are for sale at Café Zinc in Corona del Mar, The Road Less Traveled in Santa Ana and at www.handstogether-sa.org (click the "shop" tab). They will also be on display at the Day of the Dead festivities in downtown Santa Ana on Nov. 3, although they can't sell them at the event because they missed the application deadline for a sales permit. (Jeez, is there somebody at City Hall who can give them a break?)

Next: more Birds of Hope ornaments for Christmas and soon, Anderson hopes, another step forward in profit-making.

"I'm hoping we can produce a $25 item," she says. "I'm thinking aprons."

Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com

Women stitch and sell calaveras, or Day of the Dead skulls, as part of the Morning Garden anti-poverty program held in the basement at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in downtown Santa Ana. From left, Minerva Molina, Delfina Garcia and Susana Montalva. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Panchita Rosas stitches together a calavera as part of the Morning Garden program. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Ana Luisa Alcauter stitches together a calavera. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
One of the calaveras, or skulls, created by the Morning Garden program in Santa Ana. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
This calaveras features a mustache. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
One of the Day of the Dead calaveras, or skulls, created by the women of the Morning Garden anti-poverty program in Santa Ana. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Truly, no two calaveras are exactly alike. FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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